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Ask YC: Notable People On YC
Just a simple thread to post notable people in the industry and their usernames/ comment streams. My contribution: Fred Wilson
http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=fredwilson
- johns 18y agohttp://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dhh http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dhh (although apparently now dormant) http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=jzawodny http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=jzawodny (relatively new addition) http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pg http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pg (hehe)
- aneesh 18y agoEveryone's definition of "notable" might vary a little, but: Paul Buchheit: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=paul http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=paul
- jasonlbaptiste 18y agomike arrington/techcrunch: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=techcrunch http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=techcrunch
- ashleyw 18y agoIs that really mike and/or techcrunch staff?
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- wallflower 18y agoOwen Byrne - Digg co-founder: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ojbyrne http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ojbyrne Marc Andreessen - Netcape/Opsware/Ning (appears dormant) http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pmarca http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pmarca Aaron Swartz http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=aaronsw http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=aaronsw And you never know who is lurking.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- technoguyrob 18y agoIs that really Steve Pavlina?
- johns 18y agohttp://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=jasonfried http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=jasonfried
- staunch 18y agoJoel Spolsky: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=spolsky http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=spolsky
- dfranke 18y agoRTM, of course: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=rtm http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=rtm And though it'd be a stretch to call them notable, people I at least heard of before they came here: Colin Perciva (FreeBSD security officer; Putnam winner): http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=cperciva http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=cperciva John Graham-Cummings (active in the anti-spam community; caused a firestorm when he submitted Reddit to Digg and got censored): http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=jgrahamc http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=jgrahamc Doug Renert (partner at Tandem E.): http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=DougR http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=DougR and I think ESR might lurk here occasionally.
- jgrahamc 18y agoI'm notable? <blushes>
- DanielBMarkham 18y agocongrats. You made it. It's all downhill from here. : )
- smanek 18y agoIt seems like that there is a reason that names are tiny/gray: we should judge what is said on its merit, not based on who said it. I've had the good fortune to know and work with some extremely smart people, and none of them is always right. How is it useful to be able to follow all of X's comments? I've found that the moderation system here is fairly good at separating the wheat from the chaff. Far more so than identity is, at least.
- chris_l 18y agoThe point here being that these people are notable for a reason. I expect to find disproportionately more useful/insightful comments from them on their subjects than from the average user, including myself.
- rokhayakebe 18y agoedw519 I do not know who he is outside of HN, but he sure is somebody here and I follow his comments/ http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=edw519 http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=edw519. May I also add the one and only http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mattmaroon http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mattmaroon
- iamelgringo 18y agoEd's an all around nice guy. We've met both online and in meat space at the last Startup School.
- rokhayakebe 18y agoSo can you confirm if he is PG or not? Just kidding ;)
- iamelgringo 18y agoI was in the room at the same time that PG and Ed were. I think that dcurtis and xichekolas were there chewing the fat with us at the same time.
- dfranke 18y agoAnd me as well.
- iamelgringo 18y agoI knew I was forgeting someone. Sorry.
- whalesalad 18y agoEeeeeez. Meat space just sounds sooo wrong.
- edw519 18y agoAs much as I love this community, it's even better when you get a chance to meet your on-line friends in person. After talking iamelgringo and Xichekolas for 30 seconds, I felt as if I knew them for years. I enjoyed debating browsers and screen resolutions with dcurtis. No one ever wins a debate like that, you just laugh and have another beer. I learned more about 27 new things from kirubakaran is 1 day than in the past year. Of course, it's always cool to hang out with wizards like alaskamiller, chengmi, and rms. dfranke is brilliant. He can discuss the pros and cons of 3rd and 4th normal form in one minute and laugh like Albert Einstein the next. I have a feeling there'll be threads like this about him before too long. My advice to noobs: Make friends here. And find a way to meet them in person (Startup School or even something local). This is not your usual crowd. (We're all notable in some way.) And who knows, you may even make friends for life.
- gojomo 18y agoObsession with 'celebrity' is not healthy.
- aneesh 18y agoHealthy or not, it's human.
- whacked_new 18y agoSo are pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. Saying "it's human" means "it's easy to do this," and is too often an excuse for not-so-excusable behavior.
- dbrush 18y agoI think inquiring about notable figures in the fields and industries in which many of us here find sustenance could hardly be considered 'not-so-excusable'. Branding said inquirers as fanboys seems pretty inexcusable to me.
- dhotson 18y agoIt depends, there are certain people whose opinion I respect more than others. Tech celebrities are a bit different from regular celebrities. It's (usually) not about what they look like and I'm sure most people you ask wouldn't know who someone like Joel Spolsky was anyway. With nothing else to go by, I would respect Joel's opinion far more than someone I've never spoken to before. If Bill Gates started commenting here, I'd certainly be paying attention. :)
- technoguyrob 18y agoEliezer Yudkowsky. http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=eyudkowsky http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=eyudkowsky
- yangyang42 18y agoGreat. When somebody puts me in this thread, I'll know I made it!
- dcurtis 18y agoI would be willing to bet that just about every notable person in the startup/programming industry uses this site and may occasionally post comments. I would also be willing to bet that only an extremely small subset of those notable users would publicly reveal themselves.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- whalesalad 18y agoMichael Whalen - http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=whalesalad http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=whalesalad jokes.
- ovi256 18y agoI heard Paul Graham comes around sometimes.
- dawie 18y agoHe is here quite often actaully
- edw519 18y agoI really like the idea that "notable" people may be lurking here. If only for the reason that we should all think twice before degrading someone else (or generally acting like an idiot). You never know who you're really talking to or who else may be witnessing it. (Imagine losing a 7 figure deal a year from now because the investor found out you insulted him here.)
- DanielBMarkham 18y agoI'd like to point out that I disagree with the purpose of this article -- I want to take submitter's comments on their own merits. I don't care if you are Bill Gates or the janitor. However -- and this is a "feature" of HackerNews -- I have to upvote it to keep it in my list, and I am curious to see the answers. So count this as a forced upvote.Simply because I am curious about something should not make me upvote it. Geesh.
- byrneseyeview 18y agoI'd like to do that, too. But there are many people with opinions. And many of those opinions are worthless. And many of the most interesting opinions sound worthless at first -- so I'd rather listen to what smart people say, knowing that if they sound crazy, it's probably because I'm dumb. Fortunately, twitter's front page and the 'next blog' button on the Blogger bar can supply a pretty much infinite amount of random opinions from strangers. I would be interested in how informative that is.
- DanielBMarkham 18y agoI'm not sure how you ever get around making a personal decision whether some idea is worthwhile or not. Simply because a person had one startup, does that make them a startup expert? Probably not. If I publish a book on model trains, does that mean my opinion on world trade is somehow worthy of five minutes of your attention? In fact, most of what people say -- even famous people -- is probably off-the-cuff and not exactly geared to your particular situation. Most all communication, in fact, is basically just chit-chat: obscure facts, disagreements based on partisanship instead of philosophy, pot shots at those out of power, praise for those in power, etc. You can decide to listen to what "smart people" have to say, and that's probably a good idea. I'd just be really careful how I defined "smart people" -- it certainly isn't fame. In fact, I'd turn the equation around backward: I would judge the people to listen to based on their ability to have given me insight in the past, not their fame, fortune, or other crowd-based attribute.
- byrneseyeview 18y ago
- a10 18y agoJeremy Zawodny http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=jzawodny http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=jzawodny